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A coalition of Jacob Zuma supporters was not prepared to say on Thursday whether it thought his rape trial had been free and fair. ”It’s not our place to be commenting while the trial is still in progress. [We] shouldn’t be locked down on ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers,” Young Communist League president Buti Manamela said.
A former Middle East specialist of the United States Central Intelligence Agency on Thursday condemned what he called an organised campaign of manipulation by the Bush administration to justify the Iraq war. Paul Pillar, a former CIA analyst said in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Pais that the US had particularly wanted to prove a link between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Thursday opened a road named after him in Malawi, accusing those who criticise his human rights record of "speaking for their white masters". Cheered on amid heavy security, Mugabe unveiled a plaque to open the newly constructed road between Malawi’s commercial capital Blantyre and the Mozambican border.
Four of five life rafts spotted by a rescue aircraft searching for missing crew of the Alexandros T were found to be empty, search-and-rescue officials said on Thursday. One person was rescued from a life raft at about 10am, bringing the total number of crew rescued to seven. Twenty-six crew members are still missing.
A suicide bomber attacked a crowd of people waiting outside a heavily guarded court building in Baghdad on Thursday, killing 10 Iraqis and wounding 52, police said. Two United States soldiers also died in a roadside bomb attack. On Wednesday, the corpses of 43 Iraqis were found in the streets of Baghdad and other cities.
Less than two months after the Property Charter came into effect, Asset Alliance — holding company of both South Africa’s largest auction and valuation companies, Auction Alliance and Valuation Alliance — on Thursday signed a black economic empowerment (BEE) deal at a company value of R100-million, the biggest deal in the sector to date.
Nedbank’s headline earnings for the first quarter of its current financial year were up 82,9% to R1,026-billion, the banking group said on Thursday. Headline earnings per share are anticipated to be between 30% and 50% greater than the 354 cents per share reported for June 2005.
Sex, betrayal and bloodshed were the order of a fateful day for the lost souls of Lost. With the season drawing to a close this month, Lost put several of its airline-crash castaways in the line of fire and proved it has not run out of plot twists. For those planning to watch the episode of the ABC drama later that aired on Wednesday in the United States, please do not read any further.
Paramedics and psychologists were on Thursday counselling two Australian miners buried alive for nine days as rescuers inched towards them, drilling through tonnes of rock. With the method and speed of the rescue attempt limited by fears of a new rockfall, the medics were available 24 hours a day at one end of a narrow pipe which is the only link the men have to the outside world.
South Africa’s party list electoral system is stifling dissent and ensuring accountability to parties, rather than citizens, according to a submission contained in the working draft of South Africa’s Country Self Assessment Report. The report is designed to help countries in Africa improve their governance.